


Safe

by oystergrrl



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oystergrrl/pseuds/oystergrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt was “Dean and Cas have a quiet moment in Purgatory. It can be a moment of talking about what they'll do once they are out, or maybe talking about things and the people they miss from home.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_yashka](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lady_yashka).



> This starts off in Purgatory, then jumps forward to just after 8x05 and goes more or less completely AU from there, mostly because I knew if I tried too hard to stick to canon, there’s no way I’d have finished this by the deadline (though there are a few slight nods to later episodes, some of which were written before those episodes aired, so go, me!  ). Betaed by my lovely husband.

 Dean reaches down and grabs Cas’s outstretched hand.

“Come on,” he says. “On three. One… two…”

Cas pushes off of the footholds he’s found in the rock of the hillside, and with a tug, Dean hoists him over the lip of the narrow cliff on which he and Benny are standing.

It’s coming up on dusk in Purgatory, which is pretty much Dean’s least favorite time, seeing as it means a whole new stretch of monster-packed darkness is on the way. A sporadic, oily rain is starting to fall, with the promise of more to come. They’re in an area that’s familiar to Benny, and he’s leading them to a cave where they can shelter for the night. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal – it’s not like he hasn’t spent a wet night out in the open before – but Dean is finding that he is craving this dry space like food or music or sex. Like something he needs to live.

Not that he’d ever admit that.

“Anything incoming?” Benny asks Cas, glancing out over the darkening horizon.

Cas cocks his head, doing the listening that isn’t really listening.

“No,” he says. “I think we’re more or less safe for the time being.”

“Let’s get on with it then,” Benny says, jerking his head and leading them around the curve of the hill. As they go, Dean reaches down and grabs a piece of broken tree limb from the underbrush. He tucks it inside his jacket, pressing his arm tight to his side to hold it in place as they walk.

Before long, they come to a sort of narrow valley that dead ends at a point where the hill they’re on merges into another. At the juncture, there’s a shelf of rock sticking out over a cliff adjacent to theirs, with just enough space underneath for them stand up in, and tucked back in the corner, the mouth of a cave. They duck into the shelf’s cover gratefully, just as the rain starts falling in earnest.

Dean pulls the limb out from inside his jacket and the knife out from inside his boot and gets to work, splitting the top of the limb into quarters , then stripping leaves, twigs, and bark from the outside to cram into the fresh cuts. He fishes the lighter out of his jacket pocket, and after a couple of tries ( _it must be running out of fluid – don’t think about it too much, it’s too depressing_ ), he gets a flame. The wood is damp, and it spits and smokes fitfully, but eventually it catches. Pleased, Dean pockets the lighter and looks up to see Cas watching him intently and Benny giving him a look that very clearly says, “Are you kidding me with this?”

“Shut up,” Dean replies out loud, and Benny rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll take first watch, let one of you jokers know when it’s time to switch shifts”. Dean nods, and he and Cas duck through the mouth of the cave.

It’s… well, it’s a cave. The entrance is narrow, but the space quickly opens up into a more or less round chamber with a ceiling so high it disappears into the darkness. Long, thin veins of rock jut out of the walls at oddly regular intervals, creating a series of alcoves. The effect is something like being inside the rib cage of a giant animal, which, Dean has to admit, is a wee bit unsettling. But even so, the feeling of being in actual shelter, with several feet of stone between them and whatever nasties are prowling around outside, makes it feel like the damn Ritz.

Cas slumps down into one of the rock niches , leaning his head against one of the outcroppings and sighing deeply, while Dean runs a hand over the wall, looking for a crack to wedge the torch into. Benny’s right about the torch, of course. The flame isn’t particularly necessary. In fact, it’s potentially really dangerous, since anything that happens to be hunting nearby could see or smell it. Dean understands this; he just doesn’t care. More and more lately, he seizes on any excuse to light a fire, mostly just to keep some of the unrelenting bleakness of Purgatory at bay. He doesn’t have any of his usual standbys – cheeseburgers, Jim Bean, porn – to fall back on here, so this is his one vice. He’s vaguely surprised his time in the Pit didn’t give him some sort of complex about it, but apparently, that visceral need for light and warmth and safety is buried so deep in the most basic, caveman part of his brain that nothing can touch it – not even Hell.

He finally finds a fissure in the rock that looks suited to his purpose and jams the torch into it. A chunk of the base snaps off in his hand as he forces it into the narrow space, but in the end, it seems more or less stable. Satisfied, he settles down into one of the hollowed-out spaces near Cas, twirling the broken piece of wood idly between his fingers.

Outside the cave, Benny is whistling. Benny whistles a lot, mostly tunes that Dean recognizes from Bugs Bunny cartoons, and Dean thinks it’s ridiculous, seeing as Benny is the one who’s always so concerned about attracting unwanted attention. It’s become a running thing with them, actually - Benny whistles, and Dean needs fire, and each of them thinks the other is going to get them both killed.

“Hey, Lestat,” Dean calls out. “Knock it off with the Beethoven, would ya?”

“That’s Wagner, you philistine,” Benny’s disembodied voice replies, but the whistling stops.

“I can see why you like him,” Cas says after a moment. “Benny.”

“Who says I like him?” Dean replies, poking at the soil of the cave floor with his piece of wood. “We’re not exactly swapping BFF charms and sharing recipes on Pinterest. This is business relationship, pure and simple. ”

“Dean,” Cas says, giving him an eloquent lift of the eyebrow.

“Oh, alright, fine – I like him,” Dean mutters. “He’s not your average rip-your-guts-out-now, ask-questions-later monster.”

“A vampire with a soul,” Cas says knowingly. “Like Angel.”

“Angel?” Dean says, looking up. “What angel?”

“The vampire Angel,” Cas says. “Buffy’s true love.”

Dean stares at him for a moment before the penny drops.

“Are you talking about _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_?” he sputters. “How have you even heard of that?”

“Sam has a fondness for Buffy,” Cas says, looking sheepish. “He did seem to think you wouldn’t approve.”

Dean goes quiet at that. It’s the first time either of them has mentioned Sam since they got to Purgatory, at least face to face. Early on in his time here, there had been some nights – the very worst ones – when Dean’s prayers had become less about talking to Cas and more about just talking, and on those nights, he hadn’t held anything back. Every fear, every regret – it was all on the table, and, not surprisingly, Sam had featured pretty heavily. Dean had been well and truly mortified to discover Cas had actually heard all of that, so he had fallen back on the time-honored strategy of pretending like it never happened. And Cas had seemed willing to follow his lead. Until now.

“I’m sure Sam is fine, Dean” he says.  “I believe he was far enough away from the explosion to be safe.”

“I know,” Dean says, feigning nonchalance, because even if Cas already knows how he feels, he can’t risk unpacking that baggage just now. “Might even be good for him. You know how he digs the research. He’s probably elbow-deep in a stack of old books right now trying to figure out how to break us out of this freakshow.” He starts jabbing the ground a little harder than before, loosening bigger clods of dirt. “And he’d better be taking care of my car.”

Cas makes a vaguely affirmative sound , but doesn’t say anything else right away, and Dean begins to think that maybe – hopefully – the conversation is over.

No such luck.

“We need to talk about this escape plan, Dean,” Cas says.

Dean sighs.

“No, we really don’t.”

“Benny has a point.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“I’m a liability to you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“It’s extremely unlikely I’ll even be allowed through the portal,” Cas persists. “It would be better for you if we just split up no-“

“Oh, for _fuck’s sake_ ,” Dean explodes, hurling the wood fragment into the dimness of the cave. “It’s like talking to the goddamn wall.” He turns toward Cas, meets those unreadable blue eyes.

“I _am not_ leaving here without you,” he says, voice low and gruff. “Do you hear me? We are all getting out of here together, or we’re not getting out at all. This is seriously the last time I want to have this conversation, or so help me, I will kick your feathery ass myself. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Dean,” Cas says quietly.

************************************************************************************

_The wind is whipping around them, blowing leaves and dirt into their hair and eyes and mouths, and the energy of the portal crackles in the air. Dean steps through and holds out his hand to Cas._

_“Come on!” he shouts._

_Cas’s hand closes around Dean’s, but almost immediately, his grip starts slipping, as if something is telling him to stay as surely as it’s telling Dean to go._

_“I got you! Hold on!” Dean shouts again._

_“Dean!” Cas yells, and Dean sees something in his eyes that he can’t name._

_“Hold on!” Dean’s voice is raw in his throat._

_“Dean!” Cas calls out. “DEAN!”_

_And Dean is grasping, clawing, trying so hard not to let go, but then Cas’s hand is gone and he is falling down, down, down, through a scalding darkness…_

Dean snaps awake, the motel sheets sweat-damp beneath him. On the other side of the room, Sam is sitting at the tiny Formica table, face illuminated by the laptop screen.

“You OK?” he asks, trying and failing to sound unworried.

“Yeah,” Dean says, pushing himself up to a sitting position and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Never mind that his heart is pounding and his T-shirt and boxers are clammy against his skin. Everything’s cool. Totally copacetic. Just like always.

Suddenly, the room feels too small, and Dean has the overpowering urge to be _away_.  He throws the blankets off and swings his legs over the side of the bed, standing up and pulling on the jeans he threw across the nearby chair earlier.

“I’m going for a walk,” he says, sleepily buckling his belt.

“Dude, it’s, like, 3 in the morning,” Sam says, leaning back in his chair and giving Dean a careful look.

Dean grabs various keys from the bedside table and shoves his feet into his boots, not bothering with the laces.

“I won’t go far,” he mumbles and slips out the door.

He’s good to his word. In fact, he only makes it as far as the Impala, parked just across the sidewalk. Then, for lack of any better place to go, he slides into the driver’s seat, lets the comforting presence of his car settle around him like a blanket.

For a minute, he just sits, breathing deep and taking in the scent of leather cleaner and coconut. He smiles a little and reaches up to flick the cardboard hula girl dangling from the rearview mirror. Now that the dog smell is gone, he has to admit that Sam has taken excellent care of his baby.  He feels just as at-home here as he ever has. It’s everywhere else that he feels out of place. It’s like the world was transformed  while he was gone, but Dean knows it’s really not the world that’s different, at least not entirely. It’s him. No matter what he does, he can’t seem to get back in sync with anything. He’d fought so hard to get back here, and what does he have to show for it? A brother he barely recognizes and a vampire in the middle of an existential crisis. Awesome.  He can’t even find one measly little prophet of the Lord.

He slides his hands along the soothing contours of the steering wheel, then lets his head fall forward to rest on the top edge. It’s so quiet here. He still hasn’t gotten used to the quiet, or at least a quiet that’s not the enemy. In Purgatory, quiet didn’t mean that there weren’t monsters around, only that you hadn’t become aware of them yet and they still had a tactical advantage. Dean had learned to respond to the sound of a snapped twig or leaves crushed underfoot with a certain kind of relief – it meant the solid reality of a face-to-face fight to break up the shapeless dread that followed him everywhere.

It’s in that moment, with that remembered feeling of danger so strong, that he hears another sound. One that is as familiar to him as the leathery creak of Dad’s jacket, as Sam calling his name.

The rustle of wings.

He doesn’t look up right away. There’s no need – it’s just his imagination, after all. It must be, because he wants so badly for it to be real, and that’s not how it works when you’re a Winchester. You never get what you want. Or wouldn’t it just be typical for it to be one of those other dick angels, showing up to screw around with his life again? Seriously, what the hell was their problem? Couldn’t they just leave him alone?

He’s gotten himself good and riled, and that’s what finally gives him the strength to lift his head, ready to tear into whichever heavenly asshole has shown up this time. The figure he sees out the driver’s side window is facing away from the car - Dean can only tell that he is tall, broad-shouldered, with blonde hair brushing the collar of his suit jacket. And that he has a body in his arms.

Almost as if he can feel Dean’s eyes on him, the angel turns. And Dean sees that the body in his arms is Cas.

Dean is out of the car in a second, though his feet seem oddly resistant to going further than a couple of steps.

“Dean Winchester,” the angel says, and feeling stupid, Dean just nods.

“I am Zerachiel. I am here on Castiel’s behalf.”

A shudder runs through Cas then, and that’s what finally spurs Dean into action. He lunges for the motel room door, throwing it open with a bang. Sam leaps out of his chair at the sound, instinctively reaching for his pistol on the dresser, but once he sees what is happening he freezes.

“Is that… is that _Cas_?”

Dean ignores him, focusing instead on throwing the rumpled blankets on the bed he just vacated out of the way so Zerachiel can lay Cas down.

“What happened?” Dean finally manages to say as Sam comes to stand with him by the bed.

“A small band of my brothers and I found a loophole of sorts – a way to reclaim Castiel from Purgatory.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“It’s the shock of the transition. The retrieval process was not an easy one, to say the least.”

“Is he going to be OK?” Sam says, and Dean is grateful that he didn’t have to ask.

“He is very weak,” Zerachiel says, “But he should live.”

Dean tries hard not to dwell on the “should”.

“Once we had moved him to safety, he was babbling, incoherent,” Zerachiel continues.” But he kept calling out for you.”

Dean feels a flush rising in his face and chest, but he maintains eye contact with Zerachiel, just as cool as you please.

“We thought bringing him here might ease his mind and speed his healing,” the angel concludes.

Dean says nothing, less because he’s trying to be all Steve McQueen-strong-and-silent than because he has no idea what to say. Still, it’s gratifying when Zerachiel looks away first.

“It’s hard to tell how long it will take Castiel to recover,” he says, glancing down at Cas. “It could be hours or days. Once he is fit to travel, we will come to take him back to Heaven.”

Almost without noticing, Dean steps forward, placing himself between Cas and Zerachiel, feet planted, shoulders squared.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says. “You think you can just sweep in here and take Cas off for some of your brainwashing reeducation crap before he’s strong enough to defend himself? You want him, you’re gonna have to go through us to get him. You got me?”

Zerachiel glowers at Dean for a long minute, but then his face softens into an expression that is equal parts impressed and amused. When he speaks again, his voice is not unkind.

“We would not have pulled him out of Purgatory only to harm him.  He will be among friends.”

They stare at each other for a little longer, and then Zerachiel gives a small nod and vanishes , the sound of his wings barely a whisper. At that, Dean starts to feel his rush of adrenaline fading, and he finally sinks into the chair by the bed and really focuses on Cas.

He looks like shit, frankly. Underneath the beard and the filth, he seems even paler than usual, and he has the restless, twitchy look of someone sleeping off a fever. Just the fact that he _needs_ sleep is worrying, because when has that ever been a good thing? And what are they supposed to do with him exactly? Even once he’s awake, dosing him with soup and Tylenol hardly seems like enough.

Dean can feel Sam watching them, but he pretends not to notice, keeping his eyes on Cas. After a minute or two, Sam mutters something about going to the 24-hour Wal-Mart down the highway to get Cas some clothes, and then he’s gone.

Dean sits there for a long time, listening to the faucet dripping in the bathroom sink and watching Cas’s face. He considers getting up and digging the fifth of whiskey out of his duffel bag, but he dismisses the idea almost immediately. He’d bought the hooch over a week ago and barely touched it; he just doesn’t feel the need as much anymore . Say what you like about Purgatory – it dries you out quicker than a trip to Betty Ford. Thus unfortified, he runs a hand over his face and leans back into the ratty upholstery of the chair, settling in to wait.

When Cas does finally wake up, it happens without warning. Out of nowhere, he sucks in a deep breath, as if he’s surfacing from underwater, and his eyes pop open. They’re wide and glassy, rolling in the sockets as, clearly disoriented, he starts to flail, groping around blindly in panic. Without thinking, Dean reaches out and grabs his hand.

“Hey, hey, take it easy, man,” he says soothingly. “It’s OK. You’re OK.”

Cas turns toward him, managing to focus a little.

“Dean?!”

“Yeah, it’s me. Just calm down, all right?”

“What are you doing here?” Cas demands, showing zero signs of calming down. “You were supposed to go. You were supposed to be safe.”

“I am safe,” Dean rushes to reassure him. “We both are. We got out, Cas. We’re _out_.”

At that, Cas slumps back against the pillow, finally taking in the room’s dingy wallpaper, the hideous painting of a mailbox with wildflowers, the water-stained ceiling. Dean feels some of the tension start to drain from Cas’s body.

“Out,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t sound particularly relieved – just sort of surprised. Baffled.  And maybe a little disappointed?

 _Don’t read too much into it_ , Dean tells himself. _He’s still in_ _pretty bad shape._

“Dean,” Cas says, licking his lips and looking very serious. “I…”

His voice falters and his gaze starts to lose the little clarity it had.

“I need to… tell you…”

 And with a flutter of eyelids, he’s unconscious again.

Dean sighs. And suddenly becomes very aware of the fact that he is still holding Cas’s hand.

It’s a mess, covered in just as much blood and dirt and Leviathan goo as the rest of him. There’s a fresh gash over the top of his knuckles, and two of the nails are broken. But most of all, it feels strangely light, as if any minute Cas could just drift away, fade into nothingness, and it’s that lightness that makes something in Dean’s gut twist. Because no matter how many times he comes back – and he is proving to be a resilient bastard – every time Cas goes, he takes a little piece of Dean with him, and it’s not like there’s much left to spare.

A memory surfaces in Dean’s head, of a cave in Purgatory, with a torch jammed into the rock and rain falling outside. Dean had been slipping in and out of an uneasy doze – the closest to actual rest he ever got in that place – when he had noticed Cas watching him, eyes shadowed in the wavering torchlight. Cas’s face had looked weary, but everything about the way he’d held himself had said that he was awake and alert and ready to smite the shit out of anything stupid enough to come near Dean. It was so fleeting that later, Dean wasn’t entirely convinced he hadn’t imagined it, but it that brief moment, he’d felt secure enough to slip into an hour or so of deepest sleep he’d managed since he’d first gotten to Purgatory.

And now here Cas is, defenseless, shivering through the remnants of shock. Not for the first time, Dean is amazed that something so powerful could be so fragile. Living with Sam is a roller coaster, no question, but this, Cas… it’s just exhausting. Dean never knows exactly where he stands with Cas, what his role is supposed to be. Is he the protectee or the protector? Is he the peon human who’s supposed to take everything on faith or the badass hunter who has to explain to an angel how to navigate the world? Cas makes things difficult and complicated and frequently bloody, as if Dean needs any help with that. But even that is better than when he’s gone, leaving an emptiness inside Dean that is just way, way too girly to cop to. Those are the times when Dean really gets confused.

Cas stirs in his sleep, and Dean sighs. If having Cas around is like constantly sitting behind the 8-ball, waiting for that drop into the pocket, well, what in his life isn’t? At least for now, Cas is here. He’s _here,_ and he seems more or less whole. The two of them and Sam and Benny are all walking the earth. And maybe that’s enough of a victory for tonight. If the son of a bitch would just stay awake.

Dean leans forward, elbows on knees, folding  Cas’s hand between both of his. Willing himself to be  awake. Alert. Ready to smite.

That’s how Sam finds them when he gets back, carrying cups of coffee and plastic bags stuffed with pajamas and underwear, flannels and jeans.

And buy that man a beer – he doesn’t say a single word.


End file.
